Cage
by Orion Winter
Summary: Written after having seen the preview for "Rubble Without a Cause" I think it was called and finally got a chance to publish it here. Mary is trapped in crumbling building after it explodes...can Marshall can free his exotic animal from this cage.
1. Trapped

**Disclaimer:** I love _In Plain Sight_ but sadly I do not own it or any of it characters and affiliations.

**Summary:** I wrote this story after watching the preview for "Rubble without a cause" and just now had a chance to finish the first chapter. Not sure if it will be a one-shot or not though.

**Pairings:** Mary/Marshall because I think Marshall is the only one Mary could ever be with......and no I do NOT feel sorry for Raph with the comment.

**Rating:** T for safe but it might change if I add more chapters.

He hadn't heard from her since the first explosion racked the building. There was no word on her or her witness. Marshall was breaching a panic he never wanted to feel again since Mary was kidnapped.

Another monsterous explosion moved throughout the building and everyone around unwillingly froze to watch as more than three quarters of the structure Mary and her witness were trapped in, came tumbling down to the ground. Marshall ducked to avoid the falling chunks of concrete and when he looked up again, his panic increase to it's highest degree. All anyone could see was a mangled pile of stone and concrete. It looked as if nothing would be able to come out of that mess.

"MARY!!!!!!!", Marshall screamed.

He ran. He falt out ran as hard as his body would let him run. Forget the fact that the doctor told him not to for atleast a year. Forget that his lungs were already screaming at him to slow down. He HAD to get in there. Suddenly there were arms holding him back, Stan.

"Stan let me go!! Mary's still in there, I have to find her!!"

"Marshall! You can't go in there, we don't know how stable the building is", Stan tried to reason with his inspector.

"MARY!!!!"

Marshall let another gut renching scream, only this time Stan could hear the breaking in his voice near the end. Marshall gave the building one last look before he finally broke and landed on his knees right there in the blocked off street.

Everything around him told Marshall that it was over. There was no way anyone, not even his tough-as-nails Mary, could make it out of the crumbled heep of a building now. Marshall was smart and his mind was swarming with statistics, and facts ranging from laws of gravity and other parts of science, to how much impact the pieces of rubble could have on his partner, his Mary.

He couldn't take it. He couldn't stand even the idea that she was.....

_NO! Mary was alive! She had to be......_ Marshall's thoughts trailed of as his emotions caught up with him. Emotions that Mary would laugh at and tease him for showing so blatantly, and in public no less!

Marshall finally couldn't hold them back any longer. He let the tears fall for the fear he felt for his partner, his best friend, his Mary. Yes she was HIS, and he would fight with everything he had for her in any situation so long as she stayed....HIS. He loved Mary with every part of him. He knew Mary of all people was the hardest person to love, for she found it nearly impossible to love anyone in return, but he loved her and there was nothing in the world he would do to make that love for her go away.

He also knew that technically it went against EVERY protocal and rule of WITSEC, but he also knew Stan. Stan would turn a blind eye so long as they did there job as well as they always did and managed to bring each other alive while they did it. Well he couldn't very do all that without HER could he.

"Mary", he whispered. His voice was hoarse and hardly sounded like his own right then.

_I can't lose her, I can't, Marshall thought, I need her, I love her._

As Marshall looked up at the destroyed building again he saw something different, something that made his heart wrench and hurt even more.

It was a cage. A cage that was much to small for the creature it imprisoned. His beautiful, exotic animal was trapped in cage that she didn't belong in. She was locked in a cage that Marshall had to get her out of.


	2. Author's Note

Hey all! I am so happy that I got reviews already and as many as I did. All of you are great and I love that you love my story. Like I said my summer is a little cramped so my updating skills will not be all that great but I am hoping to get the next chapter of the story up in the next 2 weeks. hmmm.... I am wondering if the next episode of IPS tomorrow night will provide some insiration as I am suddenly not sure how I want to take the story. One review gave me a good Idea to just go with the orginal episode as close as possible, but like I said I am not sure.

SOOOOO.....Let me know what YOU guys would like to see happen in the next chapter. Do yo want me to follow the rest of the episode from here on out or do you want to see a complete alternate? Let me know and

PLEASE keep reviewing!

Spawny 


	3. Marshall on the Brain

Marshall on the Brain

**Disclaimer: **Again don't own anything except MY story line

**Rating:** T

_Mary's thoughts_

_**Marshall...in Mary's head**_

Mary never failed. Ok so that was a blunt lie. She had failed on more than one occassion with her own disfunctional family but when it came to her job, her witness....

Mary never failed....until now.

After the second explosion, there was no way for her witness to survive. To say Mary was upset would be an understatement...she was outright pissed off. Here she was trapped under a huge pile of concrete and steel and it was all for nothing. She couldn't have atleast protected her witness first? Damn.

_Well, I can't do much about it now can I?_ she asked herself. Loathed as she was to admit it, there really was nothing she could do except get out and get the bastard that caused all of this in the first place.

And that presented yet another problem for the inspector......SHE was stuck.

_Damnit! Now how the hell am I supposed to get out of here?_

Mary picked herself up as much as she could and took note of the condition she was in as well as the destuction around her. Concrete and metal surrounded her from every direction, she couldn't even see her witness anymore since he was comepletely burried under the rubble. She could now see why she could only lift half of her body up just enough to look around and why she had to crane her neck from the effort. Her entire lower half from her hips down were pinned under a rather tall pile of steel bars and pieces of the stone walls. She was really screwed.

"Urrggh" Mary let out as she let herself fall back again. She was so tired and she could feel a headache comming from a mile away.

_If I just rest here for a little bit then I'll feel better and then I can dig my self out of this crap hole_, Mary thought.

As she let her eyes drift shut, she instantly snapped them back open and stared straight ahead.

_**NO! Don't fall asleep!**_

Mary looked around again.....nothing. She could have sworn she had just heard Marshall yelling at her to stay awake. But she also KNEW there was no way anyone could ever make it up here from the ground where she was sure Marshall had been the last time she talked to him. She made to close her eyes again so she could finally sleep when she heard it again.

_**Mary! Stay awake! You CAN NOT fall asleep!**_

That time she was absolutley certain it was Marshall yelling at her. Mary couldn't remember a time when Marshall had ever yelled at her and she knew her radio was destroyed so she decided that his voice was all in her head.

_Well if I'm hearing Marshall in my head there must be a reason...what did he tell me not to do again?_

_Oh....don't sleep...well that sucks, Marshall I am tired and I just want to rest!_

_**Mary listen to me! You CAN NOT go to sleep, unless you NEVER want to wake up again! Please Mare, just stay awake a little longer......for me Mare.....**_

She couldn't reason talking to a person that so clearly wasn't there but at the same time...this was Marshall, her Marshall that always kept her safe and protected every part of her, _even my heart..._ she thought. The least she could do was try to listen to him. Marshall did it for her once...he had promised. Promised he would not die....for her.

As Mary remembered that night he was shot and they were in that gringy run down diner, she remembered his words for her...."I feel like the keeper of this beautiful, exotic animal...". Yeah she was animal alright and looking around her view of her situation changed and she was suddenly feeling VERY clausterphobic.

The walls had literally caved in on her and now she was trapped. She was in this......cage and the animal Marshall saw in her wanted OUT.

Mary's breathing hitched up another notch and she heard him again.

**_Mary breathe.....just breathe and wait.....don't give up Mary....don't give up on me yet....._**

She would never, ever give up on Marshall. Mary Shannon COULD not lose faith in her dorky know-everthing-under-the-sun partner. Yeah, she would stay awake as long as she possibly could knowing Marshall would be there to help her and yell at her when she started to drift.

"Marshall....Help me" Mary whispered towards the now darkening sky.

She would NOT die........for Marshall


	4. Marshall Can Be Scary Too

**Disclaimer: **Same as when I started writing the story, only own the story line

**Rating:** T but if it does change, it won't be for quite a few more chapters...should it get that long.

Author's Note:

_Ok, so since I have the 1st season of IPS on DVD, and randomly had the notion to watch some of it the other night, I have been on a Mary/Marshall kick for the last few days. I was browsing and found my own story, read it again and suddenly started in on adding to it. As I was re-reading, images and ideas formed in my head on how I pictured this story continuing in true Mary and Marshall fashion. This chapter was really hard to write when I got to Marshall. He may be a little out of character but I think that was my point. Hey! Who WOULDN'T love to see Marshall go all "Mary-kind-of-scary/crazy" just once huh? He IS a badass under all that cute geekiness so I say, let it Marshall, just let it out and let Mary sit back and watch the fun! HEHEHEHE_

_Enjoy guys!! Hopefully I'll have another chapter up in the next few days, if not tonight or tomorrow._

_Spawny_

*Italics are _thoughts_

**Marshall Can Be Scary Too...**

Stan had never seen his inspector in such the way as he did in the last year. Yeah he knew Marshall had feelings for Mary... hell he knew the man _loved_ Mary with every bit of his soul. When Mary was kidnapped he saw Marshall work himself to the brink to find her and then more so to make sure that she didn't go down for her sister's mistakes. He was sure Marshall was the only person alive that was allowed to see Mary cry, even given how rare THAT was and he knew Marshall was the only one to EVER know Mary as well as he did and love her because of it.

As he watched the building that Mary had bolted into explode and then fall to shambles with his pain-in-the-ass inspector inside, he also watched her partner. What he saw shook him to the core.

Marshall had finally reached his limit.

Stan McQueen had seen many things in his time with the Marshal service, but nothing was ever as bone chilling or as.... heartbreaking as the state Mary's partner was in. He decided he'd given Marshall as much time to himself as he dared, Marshall can be even more dangerous as Mary sometimes, when it concerns her or a witness_....usually her_, Stan thought. He walked over to him to let him know what the teams outside had decided and to see what was goin on the man's head.

Marshall was finally thinking straight again. However he had complete tunnel vision and it was entirely focused on his partner. It didn't matter that he could rattle off about a dozen or more things about that thing they called a building that made it unsafe. It didn't matter that everything logical and factual placed in front of him told him that his partner was gone. None of that mattered to him. Only one thing mattered to him at this very moment.

Mary Shannon.

He had a moment in his head where he could swear he heard her telling him what to do, and decided that it was because he WAS acting very much like her at the moment, but he just didn't care. If anything it was the only thing that kept him grounded. He thought that if anything, Mary would be a smidge proud of him for taking her approach to things for once.

He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and noticed it was only Stan, more than llikely coming to check on him after his breakdown in the street.

"Marshall?"

He looked up and met his bosses eyes. What Stan saw there unerved him greatly as well as sent a spurt of pride for his marshal through him.

There in Marshall's blue eyes was the wildest storm Stan had ever seen. Two conflicting emotions were at outright war with each other inside this powerful man. Stan could see that a part of Marshall was lost. Part of him had given into the despair that his partner would never return to him, that he would never see her again. He was lost without Mary and Stan knew that if Mary DID NOT survive this, well he had to prepare himself to lose more than one Marshal tonight.

However he also so fight in him, fight and conviction so similar to that of Mary Shannon, it frightened him and warmed is heart at the same time. His Marshals were so gone and the one in front of him was probably the one of the two of them to realize it. They were also the only one's perfect enough for the other. Stan knew there was no way he could tell Marshall the latest decision the men around him had made and expect him to just sit and wait. Stan had to accept and deal with the only option. Since Mary was the one in trouble this time....

Marshall was going to be Mary this time.

He would head in a head of them all and not look back until he found his partner, common sense and his own personal safety be damned.

And Stan was going to let him.

"She's alive Stan...She has to be..." Marshall choked out. "We can't just leave her in there." His voice had a deadly ring to it's tone and anyone that heard him knew that whether they had already decided this or not, Marshall would go get his partner, and soon, with or without _anyone's_ approval.

So Stan decided better tell him and just let him go with a whole team behind him to help._....better than lettting him shoot us all for standing here or leaving him here to wait_, he thought as and after thought.

"Marshall, they are going to send a team into to find Mary..."

Before he even finished, Marshall was up and ready to move but Stan stopped him and held him still for a minute....if only to listen first.

"Stan you're NOT going to make me wait out here, that's NOT happening! Mary is MY partner!" Marshall stormed.

"I am aware of that, and no one is going to even think of making you wait here, if for no other reason than they value their own lives as well as that of a U.S. Marshal, but you need to listen to me for a minute." he ordered. ...._God help me when BOTH my inspectors act like Mary Shannon on a bad day._

When Marshall had calmed himself for the time being to listen, Stan continued.

"They are going to send a team in, once we all get to what would be the middle, you and I will each lead a team. Marshall, I'm trusting you to NOT go "Mary Crazy" here. You're right, she's your partner, and right now I'm betting the only one she's waiting for to help her is you so you need to be Marshall right now, alright? At the very least, be Mary with your Marshall brain. Keep some level of safety in mind and DO NOT let go of your common sense. Mary can't afford for you to lose you head now."

Once Stan was done his little speach, he felt slightly bad for laying it on so thick and probably making Marshall feel a little guilty, but Marshall need to be smart about this as opposed to bareling in with Mary's brand of reckless leading him.

Marshall took in everything that Stan said to him and even he had to admit that charging in there like Mary on a tirade was probably not the best solution for said person. Yeah, he had evey intention of going in head first like she always did, but he would do it right. He would help Mary, not endanger her more.

Like any good Keeper, he would free his exotic creature from this hell.

And then....maybe if she finally let him.....he would love her.


	5. Failure Not and Option

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, never was and never will be mine. If any of them were, I would be able to put myself through college with A LOT less hassle.

_Ok so yeah I know I said this chapter would be here a hell of a long time ago but I truly had no time to even start it, and when I finally got the time, my head was blank. Today though i TOO MUCH time on my hands and started to think that maybe I could come up with something if I re-read the story....again. Worked a hell of a lot better than I anticipated. Enjoy and remember to leave me planty of REVIEWS!!!!_

_Spawny_

*Italic qoutes are "_thoughts"_

Sitting here amongst piles and piles of rubble that she could never hope to move, Mary had finally hit her last resort in her effort to heed orders from her partner.

Her partner...who was talking to her.....inside her head.

Mary Shannon is tired.

She had already counted as many stars as she could manage and see until she lost count. She ran through the entire book of WITSEC rules that was read to new witnesses...twice. She even pictured and put a name to everything on hers and Marshall's desk. There was only one think left for her to do or she was going to succumb to temptation and just pass the hell out. Consequences be damned.

But no...she couldn't.

She promised.

She was NOT going to give up on Marshall. Not now, not ever.

No she would do everything she could possibly do to occupy herself until Marshall got her out of here. She wanted to be awake when he found her so she could yell at him for being so stupid as to climb through this hell hole in the first place. However if Mary was _truly_ honest with herself....what better time to speak the truth, _even if only in my own damn head?_, Mary thought.

The real reason Mary refused to give in, the most important one, was not because her partner told her not to. Because since when did she ever do what she was told? Mary refused to disappoint him. She'd feared seeing that emotion swim through his blue eyes for as long she had know him. Mary was not usually one to care about what others thought of her but she most definately cared what Marshall thought.

This is what lead her to thinking exactly like the geek that was her partner in the first place.

_"Steel is an alloy"_

_"Steel consists of mostly iron with a .2-2.1% carbon content."_

These random facts were flying through Mary's head as she looked around her and all she saw was...well, steel. Steel and concrete, but she couldn't remember whatever Marshall had told her about concrete.

_"Who did Marshall say had a lot to do with Steel Production?" _Mary wondered to herself, straining to remember in an effort to keep her mind busy at the moment.

_"Oh yeah....Andrew Carnegie!, he founded the Carnegie Steel Company in the 1870's."_

* * *

Marshall was running on pure adreniline at this point. He, Stan, and all the other men that made up thier two teams were steadily climbing the decrepit structure.

Much too slowly in Marshall's opinion.

He knew of course that the slow speed at which they were searching was completely necessary. The building could come down on all of them at any moment, therefore insuring that Mary would never make it out alive, and for Marshall that just was NOT an option. He HAD to find her damn it! He _would_ find and her would get her out of there.

Them men were all coming closer to what they believed to be the middle of the ruckage. Everyone stopped to regroup.

"Alright people let's split up!" Stan ordered.

"Marshall you and your half go further up and to the left, I'll take the rest and we'll span out in the other direction."

"Got it!" Marshall assured. With a direct course in mind, Marshall could think a little clearer. He sent his men all out in seperate directions from where they were facing while he himself headed nearly straight up. "Anyone finds something, let me know immediately."

Everyone head off in one way or another looking for the missing U.S. Marshal, all hoping to whatever saints and dieties they knew that none of them would have to report to this man that his partner was in fact dead.

* * *

As Stan watched Marshall head off in search for Mary, he was nothing short of terrified. Terrified at the notion of finding his inspector too late for her to still be alive. Terrified of having tell her partner that she hadn't survived. More than anything, he was terrified of the thought that Marshall himself would find his partner that way. Stan, as much as he knew it was a possiblity, really didn't even want to think about how Mary's death would effect those that were a part of her life.

Her mother was a drunk, and if she had to bury her daughter, she would never peace outside of the bottle. Brandi, her troublesome little sister, well he did not really know enough about her to contemplate her reaction. Ralph would probably sulk and grieve, but he would move on to someone else at some point in his life.

_Marshall._

Marshall would be inconsolable. While her mother would find solice from the inside of bottle after bottle, Mary's partner would find solice well....no where. Stan shuddered at this strong brilliant man and what would happen to him if Mary Shannon died.

Marshall Mann whorshipped the ground Mary Shannon walked on, all while walking on it beside her everyday. Stan knew that there would never be another soul on the planet to ever know Mary Shannon as well as Marshall. Mary was everything to him and while she could be bull-headed and even mean when it suited her, Marshall took it all in stride as it being what made his partner the woman she was. The woman he respected, protected and dearly loved.

Stan suddenly was reminded of the shooting that took place a few months back. Marshall had survived and had come back to work with Mary and the two of them worked just as amazingly as they always had, but Stan vividly remembered how the prospect of Marshall's death had effected his most closed off inspector. It _shook_ Mary to the _core._

In that instant while he watched Marshall push everything out of his way to find his partner, Stan McQueen realized something of the upmost importance.

Without Mashall......there could be no more Mary....

Without Mary.....there could be no Marshall.

Stan McQueen, in that moment and for the remainder of the search, did something he hadn't compelled himself to do in years.

He prayed. He prayed that BOTH his inspector would make it out this alive and intact.

_"With any luck....they'll both see what right on front of their damn faces too."_

* * *

Mary had finally lost count of how many hours she had been trapped up here. She fiercely held strong to her belief that she COULD stay awake long enough for Marshall to find her.

The problem was, her _body_ didn't seem to be agreeing with her. It wanted sleep and it wanted sleep NOW. Her neck and back were starting to really ache from the way she had seated herself in an effort to stave of the exaustion she could feel crawling along her whole body.

After this long, she finally decided that someone down there had to have sent a team in after her, if Marshall had anything to say about it. He head fell back and her body began to rest...

* * *

The higher he climbed the worse Marshall was begining to feel. His shoulder and lungs were REALLY starting to protest this much exertion but he ignored it. He had to find her.

Marshall was just thinking if he might close enough for her to hear him if he called out to her when he hear it...

"MARSHALL!!!"

He froze dead in his tracks, and before he gave himself to truly process what it was he just heard, Marshall took off climbing as fast as he was humanly able.......


	6. HIATUS NOTE! PLEASE READ!

Hey guys! I know there are a fair few of you who are really waiting for me to update this story but I'm afraid this one will be on hiatus until I finish with my new one - "To Keep A Promise" - I am soo into that one right now I can't even begin to think about Cage right now, plus I recently got a beta so even when the chapters are doen they will take a little longer to post as I will be waiting for thier return from her (my beta). I am REEEAALLLYYY sorry for making you guys wait but I beg you to PLEEEEEAAAASSSEEE be paitent with me!!! I will return to this story I PROMISE!.

Spawny 


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